Execution
by Sekah
Summary: A different take on the Karasu vs. Kurama fight. Kurama is wounded, tired, and beaten down, and even the force of his life energy won't save him. In a final attempt to give his teammates peace, he obscures the ring in a fog. Pairing: Karasu/Kurama.


**Author's Note:** Another fill I did for the Yu Yu Hakusho kink meme!

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><p>The fight was hard, violent, rushing towards what seemed more and more like an inevitable conclusion. And here he was, despite best efforts, on his knees.<p>

"Prepare yourself, Kurama," Karasu derided, drawing back his hand, summoning his noxious power into a menacing glow. Kurama panted, keeling forward, tasting blood in his mouth and swallowing it. He looked up, his starry green eyes lidded with fatigue—then smiled. His hands went up, his eyes straying back towards his team, friends, praying that this mercy he was about to bring to life would be enough to keep Hiei from suicidal anger, Yusuke from crushing guilt, which could easily mean crushing defeat.

He released the smoke screen, knowing there was nothing he could do about the body or the noise, but hoping that not seeing the moment of his death would help them win, and maybe, if they made it from this hell alive, help them recover.

"You really have lost your mind, Kurama," Karasu drawled delightedly in the tangy white mist.

"Do your worst, Karasu. I have no regrets."

"You know, when given an opening like this," Karasu cooed, voice eager and near in the darkness, Kurama engulfed by his gunpowder stench, "I truly can do my worst, and for that, darling, I must thank you."

Kurama's head, relaxed in acceptance of death, snapped up. "What do you mean?"

Karasu cackled, his voice everywhere and nowhere, the fox's head beginning to whip around to find him. Then the horrible sensation of hands, as if from nowhere, began slipping in one of the bomb-tears in Kurama's clothing, their monstrous actions disfigured and obscured by the mist so thick even the tip of one's nose was out of reach.

Kurama shouted no, trying to land an elbow, anything, but two mad bombs clenched onto his knees, the clamps drawing preliminary blood as Karasu's insane snickering echoed in Kurama's ears. They easily sapped the momentum from his already agony-weakened blows, and Kurama growled like an animal as Karasu's fingers dipped below the hem of his fighting tunic, and into his pants, pawing crudely at the flesh they found within.

Kurama wasn't truly terrified until he heard Karasu's clothing rustle, visibility still horrible, fighting strength still nothing or close, and he writhed, greenery exploding weakly from his hair. It was grabbed, and used to force his head down, another mad bomb clenching around his neck, making his breath hitch sharply in a broken choke. The filthy creature attached to the clamp dangled somewhere before him, giggling horribly. Kurama couldn't flinch away, could barely breathe. Karasu was positive that Kurama wouldn't fight, afraid of death or injury from the mad bomb, the clamp.

"Kurama," Karasu purred, his voice like syrup, thick and sweet. "I can make you scream in other ways, you know."

Kurama was blinded, suffocated, his nails raking the concrete ring. The only noises he could make were desperate gurgling chokes. If he struggled, the clamp or the bombs could kill him. Death was failure. Failure was unacceptable. If he failed, this loss would end in a rape and murder, which would undoubtedly incite his teammates to fight outside the ring.

He could not let that happen. The rest of the team's survival depended on one-on-one matches, and that meant no outside interference: and truly, if it happened in the ring, nothing within the realms of possibility was outside the rules.

He heard Yusuke's voice with a zinging note of dread. "Kurama? Where is he? I can't see him!"

Karasu took that moment to caress him softly, chortling, up and down his stomach, before suddenly digging in his sharp talons. Kurama gagged in pain.

He snarled, its weakness pitiful even to his own ears, half-choked by the clamp.

Through the dampening effects of the curtain Kurama's plant had spewed, Koto could be heard calling out, "Will you just look at that! Who knows what bloody tortures could be happening behind that big blanket of white? And Juri, what are you doing outside the ring?"

Kurama hissed quietly, trying painfully to swallow down his bile when he heard Karasu snickering at him through all the murky steam reforming to water, bathing his face in disgusting damp and forming droplets that rolled down his hair and clung to his eyelashes. "Now this is no good, Kurama! I can't hear you scream. Vocalize for me, would you, pet?"

Kurama hunkered down grimly, refusing to make a sound. Suddenly, the mad bomb strangling his throat released him, thick sanguine blood dripping freely from his neck and onto the concrete blocks of the ring, where it gathered dust, reforming into an ugly dun paste that Kurama was shocked to realize he could just make out. Remembering the burning pain of the mad bomb detonating against his leg, Kurama cringed and awaited agony. A moment later, realizing that no new pain was forthcoming, he looked up, the wheels of his keen mind beginning to turn.

It seemed Karasu had released him without an explosion, Kurama was relieved to see, but why? The crow had never before shown concern for Kurama's well being. Why would he defuse his bomb without letting it shred Kurama's flesh, spatter yet more of his blood onto the ring?

As if thought could manifest evil, Karasu's body, the shreds of his jacket oppressive weights against Kurama's sides, draped over him, long and tight, the ridges of lean muscle felt even through their two sets of clothes.

Something else pressed into Kurama as well, rigid at the thought of the violence to be done. Kurama thrashed, moaning when the clamps dug into his knees. Karasu's hands were everywhere at once, petting him soothingly, like a tamed animal or an obedient pet.

Molding himself to Kurama's kneeling body with a perverse shudder, Karasu draped himself over Kurama, shamelessly allowing the fox to bear his weight. Kurama shivered as he felt lips rest against the shell of his sensitive ear.

"You must be wondering why I didn't shred you, Kurama," Karasu whispered, wickedly, lustfully. "I couldn't, you see—your pretty face must remain unharmed. Succumb, little fox; succumb and give all of yourself to me."

"And what exactly am I succumbing to?"

Karasu cackled, before his voice dropped to a sensual purr. "I'm going to put it all inside you, Fox," he said, and then his fingers slipped below the waistband of Kurama's pants at each hip.

"No!" Kurama shouted, and then bit his lip until he tasted blood, knowing that he couldn't have Yusuke and the others see the shameful actions inside this fog. Funny, though. He could see the clinging strands of Karasu's hair as a net of blue-black shadows, and only a minute ago even his own nose was out of visual reach.

It's dissipating, he thought frantically. It's dissipating!

He moaned as Karasu turned his hands around so his knuckles were snugged against Kurama's thighs, and, with a distorted chuckle, began to rend Kurama's pants apart from the inside out.

Outside the billowing smokescreen, Sakyo curled his palm around the cigarette he was lighting, the red and orange flame bathing his face in color, like he'd opened hell in his palm.

The lighter clicked closed, and Sakyo took a deep drag, removing the cancer stick and letting out the smoke in a pungent cloud, his blue eyes cold. "Is he doing what I think he's doing, Toguro?"

Toguro grunted, exasperated. "He appears to have forgotten the warning I gave him. Excuse me, Mr. Sakyo," he growled, "I need to make sure the Urameshi team won't do anything drastic."

With that, not waiting for a confirmation, the burly figure to his right was gone, Sakyo cocking an eyebrow and inhaling another sweet lungful, his eyes drifting back to the slowly thinning circle of fog.


End file.
